


Requiescat En Pace

by RileyC



Category: Highlander: The Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Methos, as Adam, learning of the death of Darius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requiescat En Pace

Methos stood well back in the shadows, his coat drawn tightly around him, the weight of his Ivanhoe a comforting presence. Adam Pierson may have become a careless and complacent twit, but the world’s oldest Immortal had had a rude awakening to its wicked ways. An ironic, bitter smile touched his lips as he considered how his old friend would chastise him for that thought. Chastise him and tell him that even in this seeming senselessness there was pattern and purpose.

He wondered how the Highlander over there, scattering ashes into the Seine, saw it, if he perceived some pattern and purpose -- or if he just wanted to find whoever’d done this and rip their head off with his bare hands. Methos was in no quandary as to where his inclinations lay. If he found out who had done this, he just might dig out his oldest journals and refresh his memory as to some of Caspian’s techniques in treating someone to a really, really bad day.

Darius wouldn’t approve of that either, of course. Right now, though, a part of Methos wanted to tell his old friend to go…do something really rude and anatomically impossible. _You weren’t supposed to die, you were supposed to keep on being a-a bloody beacon in the darkness for the rest of us_. Showing them what was possible by the living example of it, making even a tired old iconoclast believe someone could put their darkest past behind them and start again with a clean slate.

He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets, shoulders hunching against the chill. His bitterest recriminations were reserved for himself, for not being there the one time Darius actually needed him. For sitting in the damned bookstore, nattering with Don and Ian, while this travesty was going on right under his nose…

***  
“Adam,” Ian Bancroft set his cup and saucer down on the table, amidst the constant clutter of books and magazines, “what’s put this bee in your bonnet?”

Methos could guess what was buzzing in Ian’s brain. Here was this kid, Pierson, buried in research all these years, suddenly being a pest about wanting to get up close and personal to an Immortal -- well, as up close and personal as the rules allowed, of course. Pierson, who up to this moment had made it clear he was very happy buried amongst books and chronicles, and got a trifle anxious at the thought of going out into the field. So, Ian must be thinking, why does he want to tag along to the church now and see Darius? Hmmm?

“It’s just,” Methos put on his most harmless Adam Pierson manner, the shy schoolboy routine that always worked wonders for him, “I’ve gotten curious. I’ve been reading about Immortals for so long now, I would just like to see one. Just for a moment. I mean, it’s holy ground and Darius -- there couldn’t be any harm in that, could there?”

“Well,” Ian looked at Don, who just shrugged and shook his head, “I suppose that would be all right. What do you imagine seeing Darius will do, though?”

Methos shrugged. “Don’t know, really. Make it a bit more real, maybe. Sometimes it’s hard to remember these aren’t just characters in some fantastic story.”

“Believe me, Adam, there are times when it’s a little too real,” Ian said, a note of caution in his voice. “But you’re right that there’s no harm in seeing Darius. Remember, though, you just sit quietly in the back and draw no attention to yourself -- no attempt at contact.”

“Not even just to shake his hand?” Methos asked with wide-eyed innocence. “You must have done that, at least.”

Ian looked a bit huffy now. “No, I have not. Darius doesn’t even know I exist.”

Methos bit back a smile, knowing that wasn’t true -- but Ian would not be amused to learn he had caught the attention of his subject numerous times. For a moment he was tempted to tweak Ian a bit about those rules that dictated Watchers and their subjects never getting involved, but it wasn’t worth it just to see Ian get even huffier.

Besides, other than being a little too obsessed with following the letter of the law, Ian wasn’t a bad guy. He was one of the few Watchers, actually, along with Don and Joe Dawson, maybe a handful of others, who really had an appreciation of what they were doing. Who didn’t regard the Immortals as just some kind of monkey in a zoo, but were fired up with the mystery and wonder of it all. Too many of the current batch of Watchers came across like anal-retentive bureaucrats, without an ounce of imagination in them. Scarier were the few who didn’t even think of Immortals as monkeys in a zoo, but as some bizarre freak of nature that ought to be pinned to a slide, like a bug, and observed through a microscope.

Methos had a feeling that, because of that, Adam Pierson might be leaving the Watchers even sooner than planned. It was inevitable that he’d have to go in the next five years or so anyway. Don was already giving him some odd looks, remarking on his not seeming to have aged a day since he had joined the Watchers as a callow youth of twenty-two.

For now, though, Methos just wanted to pop along to the church and drop in to see his friend, without benefit of sneaking around for once. And he wanted to see how Darius reacted, if it might ruffle him for a nanosecond to sense an unexpected Immortal. Fat chance, of course; Darius probably hadn’t been ruffled since the 8th-century. That didn’t keep Methos from trying to tweak him occasionally, though, for all the good it ever did him.

As he got his coat and followed Ian outside, walking with him to the church, Methos said, “You don’t look in on Darius very often, do you?”

“Often enough,” Ian replied, not seeming to mind this. “He isn’t the most strenuous assignment I’ve ever had, I’ll grant you. There’s been a little more activity since Duncan MacLeod’s arrival, though.”

“So I’ve heard.” And not just from the Watcher grapevine. The Highlander had been one of Darius’ favorite topics for the last two hundred years, but these last months the old general had been making an even more concerted sales pitch, trying to convince Methos he should meet Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Though dragging his heels and not wanting to admit it, Methos suspected his resolve was, if not weakening, then certainly wavering. His curiosity was piqued, for one thing. Yes, this MacLeod was noble and honorable, and sounded like an all around super spiffy fellow -- but there had to be something more to him to have Darius championing him so passionately. Once in awhile, with increasing frequency, Methos had felt tempted to allow Darius to make the introductions so he could see for himself what the big deal was about MacLeod. He thought he’d wait until Darius’d had his little visit with Fitzcairn and Thackeray, though, and maybe after Darius had gotten this mystical phase out of his system.

_Prophetic dreams, my ass._ Darius’d just had one too many cups of mead, or something. That was all. In five thousand years Methos had never met a prophet who didn’t sound like some kind of huckster -- oh, well, there had been that fellow in the Galilee, but Methos didn’t like to dwell on that too much. Of course it would be welcome to think there was some greater purpose to the Game, that it wasn’t just a bloody and brutal exercise in attrition with no discernible goal. A long, long time ago Methos had bought into that, that it actually mattered in the grand scheme of things, who won and who lost. Now, though… Well, he was going to take a lot of convincing, and more evidence than Darius’ fuzzy dreams.

They were nearing the church now, a few of Darius’ flock collected at the door. Methos took another couple of steps forward, then stopped, frowning in concentration, shaking his head. That was odd... Ian headed for the door and Methos followed, only to halt again, looking around in some confusion, trying to find that familiar buzz that should herald Darius’ presence.

He’s not here. The ludicrous thought popped into his mind and lodged there, despite Methos knowing perfectly well that Darius was always there. Always.

“Adam?” Ian was looking at him, touching his arm. “Are you all right?”

“Umm,” actually no, I’m not, “just feeling dizzy.”

“You look pale.” Ian had a worried look on his face. “Maybe you should sit down?”

Methos shook his head. “I’ll be all right in a moment. You go on in. I’ll join you in a moment.”

Ian gave him another concerned look, but then left him, going into the church, and Methos stood there, biting his lip, scenarios spinning through his mind. Darius was supposed to be meeting Thackeray and Fitzcairn -- so, all right, maybe the three of them had gone somewhere together. Maybe Darius was with MacLeod. Or paying a house call to a parishioner who’d taken ill. Or…something.

Except Ian was coming back now, a strained look on his face. “Adam,” he touched Methos’ shoulder, turning him away from the church, “there’s something…odd, going on. I took the liberty of speaking with Father Beauforte -- he says Darius has disappeared.”

And Father Beauforte wouldn’t say ‘disappeared’ if he didn’t mean it. Methos watched, not wanting to think anymore, as Ian took out a cell phone and began making calls, Ian’s expression turning more bleak by the minute.

Putting the phone away, Ian finally said, “MacLeod’s Watcher says he saw him, with Fitzcairn, enter the church a little while ago. When they came out…when they came out, MacLeod appeared very distraught. He thought MacLeod and Fitzcairn were carrying some…large bundle.”

Methos felt denial click in at once. There was no way in hell Darius was dead. No way one of their kind would ever take a head on holy ground. Kronos had thought about it once, wanting to really know what might happen, but had been dissuaded in the end. For most of them, the prohibition ran so deep that they wouldn’t even kill mortals on sacred ground. That was the power of those tales told round the campfire, even though no Immortal alive had ever witnessed such an occurrence.

“Come on,” Ian tugged Methos along, back towards the bookstore, “we need to get to headquarters. We’ll find out what happened. It… it can’t be what it looks like.”

A few minutes ago Methos might have been amused to see Ian Bancroft so rattled. A few minutes ago he hadn’t this hollow, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, though.

***  
They had picked up Don and gone to headquarters, and everyone had worked themselves into a tizzy trying to find out what had become of Darius. In the end, Fitzcairn and MacLeod’s Watchers had reported seeing them at a crematorium; a few bribes later, they had the confirmation that Darius was gone, impossibly beheaded in his own church.

Speculation was ranging all over the place -- someone had even suggested Methos as the perpetrator: ‘Well, he’s the oldest of them, if the holy ground thing’s bogus then he’d know and not think twice about it.’ Methos was waiting for Ian, or someone, to pull their head out of the sand and face reality. No Immoral had done this, and that narrowed the list of suspects pretty dramatically, down to those few mortals who knew these beings walked among them, who knew where they were and how to kill them.

Methos was narrowing the list even further, zeroing in on what appeared a secret little cabal, composed of zealots of one kind or another. Some who might as well be wearing hoods and burning crosses on someone’s lawn, others who seemed to think the Inquisition and witch hunts were the dandiest ideas anyone had ever had.

He didn’t want to go any further with it, didn’t want to risk unleashing that coiled serpent if he pursued some bloody justice. He thought the Highlander over there, finished now and turning to go back into the barge with his friends, might be counted on to take care of things. Darius wouldn’t approve either of them wanting to avenge him. It wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t make him rest any easier.

Methos sighed, gazing at the dark water, pondering the elusiveness of justice, the cosmic unfairness of Darius’ light taken out of this world. Of a one-time Horsemen being left in it. Where was the sense in that?

He turned, walking away, crossing the short distance to the church and pausing there a moment, closing his eyes as he searched for some faint echo of Darius. He’d had this idea for awhile now, that, maybe if you were killed on holy ground, some little essence of your Quickening would remain there, like a ghost.

He couldn’t perceive anything, though, not the faintest whisper of his friend.

He sighed again, turned the collar of his coat up against the chill, and walked on into the night.

…the end…


End file.
